Another Word Bites The Dust

by digby

David Frum, revered right wing intellectual, accuses Democrats having no credibility of foreign policy. Whatever. It’s the usual pile of musty old tropes.

But this is positively brilliant:

Bob Shrum tells us that John McCain and Sarah Palin are falling short in their populism. Nobody has deployed the rhetoric of populism more ferociously and more often than Bob Shrum, so his assessment carries weight…

Now when Bob Shrum talks of “populism,” he has something very specific and highly ideological in mind. But most Americans—and most working politicians—use the word “populism” in a more general sense. They use it to mean, “doing what is popular.”

Really? Since when? Did he hear about that down to the monster truck rally or was he hanging with Brooks at Red Lobster for all-you-can-eat Popcorn Shrimp Friday?

And why is he being so coy? Frum is really making a case that “populism” means “flip-flopping.” And sadly, I won’t be surprised if within a couple of years those of a populist bent will be forced to stop using the word completely because it will have been bastardized into a badge of shameful hypocrisy.

Nobody can distort the plain meaning of language better than right wingers. At this point, I honestly think that joining their bizarroworld may be the only way to keep them from destroying the country with more wars and economic catastrophe. Might I suggest that we liberals just start fucking with their heads and calling ourselves conservatives?

Oh, and just as an aside, if populism means doing whatever is “popular” at the moment, then Frum must be a pitchfork wielding true believer. One day he was a much quoted Palin skeptic, and virtually the next a big fan. But in conservative bizarroworld that makes him a steadfast man of principle and intellectual integrity.

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